Professor at California State University, Long Beach Receives Gold Disk Award from Computer-Using Educators, Inc. for Contributions to Technology in Learning

Lesley Farmer, a professor in the Educational Psychology, Administration and Counseling Department at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), has been honored by Computer-Using Educators, Inc. (CUE) as this year's recipient of its Gold Disk Award.

Founded in 1978, CUE is a non-profit California corporation whose goal is to promote the integration of technology in the classroom in all disciplines and at all education levels from preschool through college. With a membership of more than 7,000 active educational professionals, CUE is one of the largest organizations of its type in the country.

The Gold Disk is CUE's oldest recognition program, and the award recognizes outstanding and sustained achievement in educational technology for teaching and education as well as substantial contributions to the association.

"It's a real honor to be selected for the Gold Disk Award. It is a rare honor from a nationally regarded organization," noted Farmer, who is the third CSULB faculty member -- along with the College of Education's Jean Casey and Ann Lathrop -- to be so recognized. "I hope the impact of this award is the recognition of the kind of people who run our library media program."

She feels she was recognized, in part, for her recent creation of a series of videotapes and Web-based resources promoting information literacy done in partnership with KOCE-TV and the Orange County Department of Education. She also has authored nearly 20 books.

Farmer writes for both library educators and educational practitioners. "My core audiences are those school library media teachers who want to do a better job, be it collaborating with the school community to incorporate technology or helping students become information literate," she pointed out.

Most recently, Farmer gave a workshop on "Produced with Producer!" at the 2005 CUE Conference in Palm Springs. She spoke on "Now You See It! Visual Literacy in the Digital Age" and "Fast and Easy Teacher Tools." She also served on the conference planning committee and chaired the Library Media Educators Special Interest Group (SIG).

As a longtime member of the International Association of School Librarians and chair of their information literacy committee, Farmer has been invited by the IASL Vice-President (SIGs) at Hong Kong University to visit the famed Chinese campus to teach and serve as an external evaluator for their program.

Farmer received her bachelor of arts in English from Whitman College and her master's in library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She served in Tunisia as a member of the Peace Corps before receiving her doctorate from Temple University in Philadelphia in 1981. She joined Virginia Commonwealth University and later worked for 15 years as a K-12 library media teacher and as an adjunct faculty at San Jose State University.

Media Contacts:
Rick Gloady, 562/985-5454, rgloady@csulb.edu
Shayne Schroeder, 562/985-1727, schroede@csulb.edu